Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

The frog didn't hop off the rock, as a sensible English frog would have. It didn't recognize him as a threat, which could have made him all the more dangerous to it. Luckily for it, he wasn't hungry right now. He plucked a leaf from a fern and dropped it in the stream.

It floated off…toward the east. "Damnation!" Richard muttered. He was still on this side of the watershed. One of these days, if that leaf didn't sink, it would wash out to sea somewhere not far from New Hastings. He wanted leaves to float west, and to follow them to Atlantis' farther shore. Thanks to Henry, he knew it was there.

More than half of him wished his brother hadn't found Avalon Bay, or anything else that had to do with Atlantis' western coast. What he already knew made his own explorations seem less weighty. Going off towards a land you already knew something about was like listening to a story where you already knew the ending. What lay in the middle might still be interesting, but it wasn't the same.

A flapjack turtle stuck its pointy-nosed head out of the water and eyed him with reptilian suspicion. He was suspicious of it, too. The creature had formidable jaws. He didn't want it taking off a finger joint if he tried to catch it. Flapjacks made good eating, but plenty of other prey was easier to hunt.

He pressed on. Light filtered through the mist, through the redwood canopy, and through the lower story of pines in sudden, startling shafts, almost as if it came through a stained-glass window in a cathedral. The tall columns of the tree trunks only strengthened the resemblance.

Richard thought God more likely to live in this pristine outdoor chapel than in any building men threw together. You could see the Creation here. The birds and the wind in the branches played a sweeter melody than any that burst from the throats of a choir. And the conifers' smell that filled the air in the woods made his nose happier than all the frankincense and myrrh brought in from distant shores.

Bishop John would not have been glad to hear his opinions. But Bishop John never would. Richard Radcliffe had no desire to fall foul of the Church. He hadn't even told his wife of his notions about the woods. She wouldn't understand them anyhow; she hadn't traveled far enough under the trees.

Maybe someone from Freetown had as little use for his neighbors and as much for the new world in which he found himself as Richard. Maybe one of Francois Kersauzon's Bretons, or a Basque from Gernika, also made a habit of plunging deep into the heartland of Atlantis for no better reason than to see what he could find. Maybe, but Richard had found no signs of other wanderings in the course of his own.

"What would I do if I did?" he wondered. He shrugged. He had no idea. It was like wondering what you would do if the mast suddenly toppled. The idea seemed far-fetched enough to be silly.

And yet, once it lodged, it didn't want to leave. He kept looking around. Every small forest sound made him wonder if he should draw his bow. He knew that was foolish, but he couldn't help it.

He'd been blazing trees to mark his path. He kept on doing it, but made his blazes point in the other direction, as if he were coming from the west. That might confuse a stranger who found them. Or it might do nothing but make him feel better. He did it anyhow.

Some of the snails that crawled up trees and foraged on ferns here in the mountains were almost the size of his fist. His first thought when he saw one was that a Frenchman would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven. His next thought was that the Frenchman might not be so foolish after all. A snail that size had a lot of meat, even if it came with eyestalks.

And, roasted over a small fire, giant snail didn't prove bad at all. It was bland enough to make him wish he'd brought more salt along, but he couldn't do anything about that now. He noted that a clean empty shell might do duty for a cup if he ever broke his.

Some of the slugs in the woods were even bigger than the snails. He needed longer to notice them, though: they were a dark green that made them look like patches of moss. But patches of moss didn't usually leave behind a trail of slime as wide as two fingers side by side when they glided along. And the slugs, of course, had eyestalks, too. They reminded Richard of slowly moving cucumbers.

They also had a lot of meat. He decided he wasn't hungry enough to find out what it tasted like. If he was missing a treat…then he was, that was all. One of these days, some other traveler, more intrepid or more desperate than he was, might find out.

He wondered how long he'd been walking downhill before he realized he was. Excitement flowered in him. Was he past the watershed at last, or was this nothing but a trick of the ground? He didn't see it rising up ahead of him, but he couldn't see very far ahead.

"A stream. I have to find a stream," he said. Finding one didn't take long, not in that moist country.

Did the water taste different, or was he imagining things? He couldn't say, not for sure. He scrabbled around in the dirt till he found a few pine needles, and he dropped them in. He felt like shouting when they slid off toward the west.

He went another half-mile or so, then repeated the test in a different rivulet. When a leaf also floated westward there, he let out a whoop that came back from the redwood trunks: "I'm on the other side!" He pressed on.

When a ship came out of the east in the middle of November, Edward Radcliffe was surprised. The Atlantic turned blustery by then; he wouldn't have wanted to put to sea at this season. Sometimes you had to, but he wouldn't have wanted to. This was a fancy trading cog, too: not a beat-up fishing boat like most of the ones that crossed the sea to Atlantis.

He walked out along the pier to meet her and see what her crew wanted. Cold, nasty drizzle blew into his face. Yes, it was November, all right, even if few of the trees here in the new land lost their leaves.

Edward stared at the fellow looking down at him from the forecastle. Under a sleeveless leather jerkin, the stranger wore a tunic of crimson silk. Edward couldn't remember the last time he'd seen silk. He didn't think any of the settlers had brought any hither. Oh, maybe a hair ribbon; maybe even a scarf. Surely no more than that.

He hadn't seen a look like the one on the stranger's face for a long time, either. He needed a moment to recognize it for what it was. The newcomer was looking down at him, all right. That was a man of high birth surveying a social inferior. It wasn't a look Edward was glad to see: he thought he'd left such fripperies behind for good.

When he didn't speak, the stranger glowered more. As far as Edward was concerned, he could glower all he pleased. And he could freeze, too, for all Edward cared, and he was probably doing just that; silk might be pretty, but it wasn't warm. Edward's dun-colored woolen cloak was homely, yes, but it shed cold and rain.

At last, grudgingly, the newcomer said, "God give you good day, old man."

"And you," Edward Radcliffe replied, more grudgingly still. True, he was old, but he didn't care to be reminded of it.

"Tell me, old man"-the stranger didn't just remind him of it, but rubbed it in on top of that-"do you know, do you have any idea, whom you will have the honor of meeting when he steps off this God-cursed scow?"

If he thought that ship was a scow, he knew nothing about the sea. Well, likely he didn't. As for the alleged honor…"No," Edward said. "Don't much care, either." He turned and started to walk away.

"Hold, varlet, or you die before your feet touch solid ground!" barked the man in silk. As if by magic, three archers had appeared behind him. Each aimed a clothyard shaft at Edward's short ribs. The rain would play merry hell with their bowstrings soon, but not soon enough.